3 trains to depart from New Delhi station on Tuesday as railways resumes passenger services

As the Indian Railways resumes its passenger services on Tuesday, the first train chugging out of New Delhi at 4pm for Bilaspur in Chhattisgarh will mark the end of the national transporter's longest absence from its regular services in its 167-year-old history.

The New Delhi railway station, in the heart of the city, will see the departure of three special trains for Dibrugarh, Bengaluru and Bilaspur on Tuesday, around 50 days after a nationwide lockdown caused suspension of all passenger train services.

The same day, five other trains bound for Delhi will leave from Patna, Bengaluru, Howrah, Mumbai and Ahmedabad, the railways said.

While its regular passenger services were stopped, several Shramik Special trains have run over the last week to transport thousands of migrant workers to their home states.

Northern Railways said in a statement that entry to New Delhi station will be allowed only from Paharganj side for all confirmed ticket holders and no entry for passengers will be permitted from the Ajmeri Gate side.

For now, the railways has issued a timetable for trains to be run between May 12 and May 20. These trains will have only AC classes i.e. first, second and third AC.

The fare structure will be as applicable for the Rajdhani trains (excluding catering charges).

On May 13, eight trains will depart from the national capital for Howrah, Rajendra Nagar, Jammu Tawi, Thiruvananthapuram, Chennai, Ranchi, Mumbai Central and Ahmedabad. Another train will leave Bhubaneswar for New Delhi.

On May 14, the only train leaving New Delhi will head for Bhubaneswar, while one train each will leave Dibrugarh, Jammu Tawi, Bilaspur and Ranchi for the national capital.

On May 15, a train each will leave Thiruvananthapuram and Chennai Central for New Delhi while one bound for Madgaon will depart from Delhi.

As per the timetable, no train is scheduled on May 16 and May 19.

May 17 will see two services - Madgaon to New Delhi and New Delhi to Secunderabad.

The only train scheduled on May 18 is from Agartala to New Delhi, while two trains scheduled on May 20 are from New Delhi to Agartala and Secunderabad to New Delhi.

Officials said, as per the guidelines, the e-ticket issued by IRCTC will work as an e-pass for the movement of drivers to and from the station to pick or drop passengers.

Bookings will be available only on the IRCTC website (www.irctc.co.in) for general quota passengers, while bare minimum reservation counters will be open on the routes of these special train for parliamentarians, freedom fighters and others who can book their tickets there.

Concessions can only be availed by patients, students and people with disabilities while no concessions for senior citizens are applicable.

Railways has also earmarked reservation quota of two berths in 3AC for Divyangjans and two berths in 1AC and four berths in 2AC for sitting and former parliamentarians.

Initially, the railways announced booking of tickets on the IRCTC website on Monday from 4 pm, but the website crashed due to huge traffic.

The services of the portal resumed around 6 pm and in 20 minutes, the Howrah-New Delhi train was booked.

By 9.15 pm Monday, approximately 30,000 PNRs had been generated and tickets were issued to more than 54,000 passengers for the next seven days.

Officials said all passengers arriving at the Delhi railway station would have to abide by the health protocols as prescribed by the state government.

On arrival at the destination, the passengers will have to adhere to health protocols prescribed by the destination state/UT, they said.

Under normal circumstances, the New Delhi railway station is one of the busiest stations in the country. A total of 351 trains arrive/depart from this station daily with a footfall of more than 5.20 lakh passengers each day.